Four Vital Skills for Aging Well
A person walking on a fallen log on the forest floor
You may know there are four vital physical skills that must be maintained in order to remain independent through our mature years. They are strength, flexibility, balance, and agility. All four are part of a typical yoga practice, in case you need a little more encouragement to get to your mat a few times a week. Let’s look at each skill and exactly how yoga can help.
First, physical strength is necessary to perform ALL of our daily tasks, from getting out of bed in the morning to making meals and cleaning up the kitchen. If we want to keep up with the Grands or play a round of golf, we need even more strength. Strength includes strong muscles, but also strong bones and joints as well, especially if we are living with arthritis. Strength building also reduces or eliminates pain by preventing falls, fractures, and tears.
Yoga asana teaches us how to lengthen muscles and then contract them as we hold poses. Doing so builds strength, tone, and length. Also, the longer we hold, or move through poses, the more endurance we will have. The variety of poses in a yoga practice ensures that we are training our strength in many different ways.
Along with strength, flexibility is needed for daily tasks. Being able to move the body through different ranges of motion ensures we are able to care for ourselves long term. Flexibility is the range of motion around any particular joint. It’s important to understand that different joints have different ranges of motion. And the range of motion is also determined by size and shapes of the bones, soft tissue tension (ligaments and fascia), and the mechanics of the joint.
A well-rounded, regular yoga practice will help you to stretch and lengthen all the muscles in your body. Flexibility-focused asana helps to keep your muscles healthy, your joints lubricated, and your ligaments nourished.
Balance is our third vital skill, and one many of us struggle with as we get older. Balance is simply the ability to remain in a stable position during any given task. Whether getting out of the car or walking down the stairs, we need to be stable in order to stay safe from falls. There are several different body systems that come into play when balancing, from vestibular to nervous and beyond, and they are all affected by aging.
Luckily, balance is one of the skills that can improve with practice. When you cultivate balance within a yoga practice, you train the different systems to be more reactive which can help abate falls, or at least reduce the impacts of a fall. Proprioception, or the ability to know where your body is in space, in particular improves with regular yoga practice.
Finally, agility is the ability to move with control and balance through different positions. Agility helps with the slightly more complicated movements of getting out of the tub or playing ball games.
Agility contains both physical and mental aspects. For more complex tasks to be done well and safely, all of the previous skills come into play, and to those we add focus and speed to get to agility. Yoga helps with agility because of the increased body awareness and the improved mental focus that comes with regular practice.
If you want to age gracefully AND remain independent, yoga is one of the best things you can do for your body. Even if you’ve been away from practice for a while, come back to it and reap the benefits. You can take classes with me by joining SoulShine, or by coming to Sun and Moon Yoga Studio on Wednesday morning at 10:00. Or, find another option to keep up with your practice.
Those of you who are already SoulShine Members can access my course, “Everyday Yoga for Mature Yogis” and take classes specifically focused on each of the four vital skills. Access the Course area through your SoulShine Member Site.